Wild Asters

Wild Asters

Somewhere on Irish Hollow Road…

This is Jo Davies County, Illinois

I grew up in Illinois! (Chicago). I would have bet big money that the state didn’t have a single hill. For the most part, I would have won the bet. It’s not called The Prairie State for nothing. Most of it is flatter than the pancake. But the very northwest tip adjacent to Wisconsin and Iowa, is another country altogether. Called the Driftless Zone, it was not impacted by the glaciation in the most recent Ice Age 10,000 years ago give or take, so was not flattened by the crunch of that relentless ice. It’s a jewel-of-a-region, typified by rolling hills, deep valleys, bluffs, cliffs, canyons, caves and rock formations high above the Mississippi River daunting enough to draw rock climbers here from quarters all across the Heartland.

This winding country road is one of many leading to and from Galena, a wonderful historic town just north of where I live dating to the early 1800’s. The birthplace of Ulysses S. Grant and a burg Mark Twain enjoyed, nearly every building in the town is registered with the Illinois Historical Society. Today, it’s a great example of a tourist destination which has kept its heritage intact with no compromising of its fine old architecture or its rich historical tradition.

I took this in September when the wild asters were in bloom. We do have traffic jams out here… they’re called “Farm Equipment on the Road!”

Wild Asters belongs to the following groups:

! ♥ The "Heartland" Group ♥ !, COUNTRY ROADS / around the World, Landscape Photography, Midwestern United States Photography *TWO UPLOADS PER DAY* and Scenery Available for sale as

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